Intersectionality

Home > Literature > Literary Disability Studies > Intersectionality

Understanding how disability intersects with other aspects of identity such as race, gender, and socio-economic status.

Intersectionality: This is the study of how different social identities intersect with one another, and how the intersections can result in unique experiences of oppression and privilege.
Disability Studies: This is an interdisciplinary field that examines disability as a social, cultural, and political phenomenon.
Ableism: Ableism is the discrimination or prejudice against people with disabilities. It assumes that non-disabled individuals are superior to those with disabilities.
Feminism: This is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. Intersectional feminism examines how different identities (such as race, class, and disability) intersect with gender.
Race and Ethnicity: Understanding how different racial and ethnic groups intersect with one another is essential to understanding the experiences of marginalized individuals.
Gender and Sexuality: Intersectionality also explores how different genders and sexual orientations intersect with one another, and how this can impact an individual's experiences of oppression and privilege.
Social Class: Social class is another key component of intersectionality. Examining how socioeconomic status intersects with other identities can provide important insights into how different individuals are impacted by oppression.
Disability Justice: Disability justice is a movement that seeks to address ableism, while also centering the experiences of disabled people, particularly those who are marginalized or at the intersections of multiple identities.
Access and Accommodation: Understanding how to provide access and accommodations for people with disabilities is an essential component of intersectionality.
Language and Terminology: Recognizing the importance of language and terminology is also important when exploring intersectionality. Using inclusive language and avoiding ableist or other oppressive language can help to create a more inclusive environment.
Race and Disability Intersectionality: It studies the intersection of race and disability, analyzing how race intersects to create injustices and inequalities for the disabled.
Gender and Disability Intersectionality: It explores how gender roles and expectations contribute to the lived experiences of differently-abled individuals.
Class and Disability Intersectionality: It focuses on how social and economic hierarchies intersect with disability, affecting access to opportunities, resources, and healthcare.
Sexual Orientation and Disability Intersectionality: It examines the intersection of sexuality and disability, exploring how the two identities interplay to shape the experiences of marginalized individuals.
Ethnicity and Disability Intersectionality: It dissects how culture and ethnicity work along with disability to create unique experiences and access issues for individuals.
Age and Disability Intersectionality: It investigates how ageism intersects with disability, affecting access to different resources for disabled individuals across different age brackets.
Geography and Disability Intersectionality: It studies the intersection of geography and disability, exploring how the environment alongside networks of social support contribute to experiences of disabled people.
Religion and Disability Intersectionality: It examines how religious identity interplays with disability, looking at how religious institutions support, or marginalize disabled people.
Nationality and Disability Intersectionality: It analyzes the intersection of nationality and disability, investigating discrimination against disabled people in different countries.
"Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how a person's various social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege."
"Examples of these factors include gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, weight, and physical appearance."
"These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing."
"Intersectional feminism aims to separate itself from white feminism by acknowledging women's differing experiences and identities."
"The term intersectionality was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989."
"Intersectionality opposes analytical systems that treat each axis of oppression in isolation."
"In this framework, for instance, discrimination against black women cannot be explained as a simple combination of misogyny and racism, but as something more complicated."
"Intersectionality engages in similar themes as triple oppression, which is the oppression associated with being a poor or immigrant woman of color."
"Criticism includes the framework's tendency to reduce individuals to specific demographic factors, and its use as an ideological tool against other feminist theories."
"Critics have characterized the framework as ambiguous and lacking defined goals."
"As it is based in standpoint theory, critics say the focus on subjective experiences can lead to contradictions and the inability to identify common causes of oppression."
"However, little good-quality quantitative research has been done to support or undermine the theory of intersectionality."
"An analysis of academic articles published through December 2019 found that there are no widely adopted quantitative methods to investigate research questions informed by intersectionality."
"The analysis ... provided recommendations on analytic best practices for future research."
"An analysis of academic articles published through May 2020 found that intersectionality is frequently misunderstood when bridging theory into quantitative methodology."
"In 2022, a quantitative approach to intersectionality was proposed based on information theory, specifically synergistic information."
"In this framing, intersectionality is identified with the information about some outcome (e.g. income, etc.) that can only be learned when multiple identities (e.g. race and sex) are known together."
"Intersectionality is identified with the information about some outcome [...] that can [...] not [be] extractable from analysis of the individual identities considered separately."
"Critics [argue] the inability to identify common causes of oppression."
"Intersectionality broadens the scope of the first and second waves of feminism, [...] to include the different experiences of women of color, poor women, immigrant women, and other groups."